Chapter 4 Continued, Vienna and Croatia

We arrived at our hostel in Vienna around 6pm and quickly checked into our dorm room. After dropping our luggage we had a delicious and stomach stuffing dinner at a Turkish restaraunt nearby. After dinner we started to walk toward the city center. After we walked through the rather mundane shopping center of Vienna we came across the beautiful museum quartier. At this point we began to really like Vienna. The beauty of this city shines in its consitency, majestic buildings frame beautiful parks, gardens, and squares throughout the entire city. This beauty was enhanced by the energy of the city. As the pink sun fell below the tree line the city was buzzing. Hundreds of rollerbladers had turned one park into a roller rink as music filled the air. A chellist captivated diners, and walkers a like in a pristine square, and an orchestra performed Mozart in the beautiful Stephanson Cathedral. Vienna was clearly enjoying its Friday night and as we walked into the heart of the city we found a live band playing along the river. We listened to the band rock as Ryan impressed me with his knowledge of every type of guitar and bass imaginable. The "Gelatateria's" along the river were also packed and Ryan and were craving something sweet so we stopped for some Gelato.

Side note:
So apparently I dont like Gelato. I mean it wasnt bad, but it just wasnt everything I would hope for in a dessert. There wasnt enough thickness, richness or chunkyness. Just smooth boring and light vanilla. This dessert didnt scratch my itch for sweetness it lightly brushed it, and made me crave a huge thick chunky and cold oreo blizzard from DQ. Ryan being the wordly and adventurous guy he is ordered pistachio gelato and had no complaints.


As we headed back towards the hostel both of us began to realize how much we liked Vienna and its overall vibe. While we had planned to head for Budapest in the morning we decided to take a day off from travel and enjoy Vienna during the day.


As two close guy friends who are totally comfortable with each other there were times during our trip where Ryan and I couldve clearly been mistaken as partners. Not partners in travel, life partners. (we even met people who verbalized this misconception) This theme really kicked off during day 2 in Vienna when we spent an hour together in a Rose garden. In our defense it was a really big, and really beautiful rose garden. Red, yellow, pink, and organgish roses created a mosaic of color and many of them were the size of my face, literally. Surrounding the garden were some of the most impressive buildings in Vienna. For somereason we just couldnt get out of the garden, as we continued to snap pictures and enjoy the great weather.

Following our frolic in the garden Ryan and I headed over to a great square in Vienna adjacent too a huge clock tower. We ate some bratwurst here with a coke and enjoyed a nice break before heading to the Sigmund Freud museum. Back in college (it really seems that long ago) Ryan and I had both studied a good amount of psychology. As a result we both were interestesd in the Freud museum. Despite our intersest the Freud museum was rather dull. It really shouldve been called the Freud 2 rooms, because the museum only had 2 rooms. However, the museum was cool because it was Freuds house and office for the majority of his life. We were actually in the room were he famously analyzed people as they laid on his couch.

After the Freud museum we walked to a sqaure from a beer . From our seat along the square we enjoyed incredible break dancers performing in the street. Adjacent to them was the most pathetic street performer I have ever laid eyes on. The dude was standing/consistently falling off of a small box, in an all gold costume. I dont even know what he was trying to be. He had a gold sword which was visibly made out of paper, and two gold helmets. When someone would try to take a picture of him he simply covered his face with one helmet and pointed to his money box. At this point photographers would laugh and simply walk away. The guy made no money in 30 minutes as we had our drinks.

When we got back to the hostel we met several of our roomates. The hostel had a bar and 5 or 6 of our roomates suggested we enjoy happy hour at the bar. After a few drinks we started a game of poker and Ryan cleaned up. We really enjoyed the night in at the hostel and we met really cool people from Canada, Brasil, Ireland, France and England (this guy was not that cool, "I play rugby a real sport," get a life dude.) The bi and someitmes trilingual abilities of these kids was truly amazing. The guy from Brasil had left his home town 5 months ago with ZERO english and after one semester in London he was speaking perfect english to us. It was amazing.


CROATIA!

The following morning we woke up early and headed to the train station for the trek to Croatia. To this point train rides on the trip had never exceeded 5 hours and trips were easy and quite enjoyable. (A credit to our planning) But the croatia trip was going to be a long day. A 7 hour train into the heart of the country (the capital Zagreb) was followed by a beautiful but miserably squeezed and hot train to the coast. Croatia's landscape was truly amazing. Impressive mountains are blanketed in thick green forest and as our train climbed, cut though and swerved around this scenary I was really impressed. For hours this landscape continued and as the sun began to dip below one hilltop the Adriatic sea and the city of Split finally came into view sprawling out beneath us.

When we found the hostel and the wonderful women who ran it we soon realized that despite our reservation for a dorm room they were over booked. The nice women ended up giving us an apartment for the price of a dorm. These two bedroom apartments were generally reserved for couples so needless to say the Spainish couple we were rooming with gave us a solid queer eye for the strait guy look as soon as we walked in the door. Regardless they were cool, and the place was nice. (I did have to get rid of a spider in our room for Ryan although hes willing to jump out of an airplane, tiny bugs terrify him). We walked down to the water for a slice of pizza and a beer, and afterwards searched for any sort of night life. Being Sunday the city was quite but we found a guitarist performing at a bar and enjoyed his entertainment for a few songs. Split was actually a major player in the Roman ruins and the city has ruins that appear more intact than their counterparts in Rome. The bar we were at sat beside an ancient archway within the Roman palace.

The next morning we visited the thriving marketplace in split. Every concievable fruit vegtable and meat was on sale and the market was flourishing with shoppers and salesmen alike. We ate a breakfast of delicious peaches and bananas at the market took in the scene. After the market we hopped on a ferry for a quick ride to the beautiful island of Hvar.

Sitting behind us on the ferry were two good looking American girls who we began to talk to. We told them we planned to rent a boat for the afternoon for some island hopping and snorkeling. Quickly they were dropping hints and suggesting their own desire to go on a boat ride. At the time these hints went unnoticed. The scene actually reminded us of the last scene from the movie Dumb and Dumber. In this scend Lloyd and Harry are stuck in the desert walking alone. A bus full of bikini models pulls up and explains to the two friends that they need two towel boys to suncreen them up for their modeling competitions. At this point Lloyd says "you are in luck! there is a town about 3 miles that way!" In our similar situation instead of inviting the girls to take a boat out with us we pointed them in the direction of the rental office. Idiots.

That night at the bar we ran into the Americans who gave us a hard time, and literally thought we might be gay.


Despite our misconcieved image the afternoon on the boat was great. We met Igor in the harbor and Ryan quickly haggled him for a fair price for the boat. Igor was a really cool guy, a tough salesmen as well, but when Ryan began talking to him about Tony Kukoc, the Chicago Bull great from Croatia, Igor took the bait, opened up and Ryan capatalized. The boat didnt go more than 8 mph but it was still awesome. The wheather was beautiful and we explored inlets, and islands for several hours before parking and heading to a quiet beach. Ryan's park job cannot go unmentioned, as he parralled the boat on the dock alongside ominous rocks. On this island we found an intimate harbor with turquoise water and a rocky beach. Here we relaxed and swam before heading back to the boat for some more exploring. Back on Hvar island we had a delicious dinner and lounged at a bar on the harbor before running into the American girls and hearing about how lame we had been earlier. The night ended with Ryan and sleeping at opposite ends of the cozy double bed.